I bought my Sporting News College Football Preview magazine yesterday. I’ve done that now for 17 straight years. It is the best college preview magazine there is, from a national standpoint. I was thumbing through the magazine and I stumbled onto Iowa’s page. That’s when an interesting thought occurred to me.

Their defensive coordinator is a man named Norm Parker and he’s one of my favorite football coaches. Norm runs a simple defense. He plays mostly Cover 2 behind a 4-3 front that attacks upfield with a 1-gap scheme. He likes light defensive linemen that can penetrate and be disruptive. Norm believes in keeping things simple and letting his players play fast. Sound familiar?

Juan Castillo’s son Greg is a DB for Iowa. I know Juan goes to games when he can and he obviously watches every Iowa game. I wonder how much of an influence Iowa has had on his defensive ideas.

The Hawkeyes are very good defensively.

2010 — 25th in yards, 7th in points

2009 — 10th in yards, 8th in points

2008 — 13th in yards, 5th in points

2007 — 36th in yards, 12th in points

You can see they are really hard to score on. Obviously that is a key point for us. The last 2 years we were solid in terms of yards allowed, but poor in terms of points allowed.

Iowa doesn’t get great recruits. They take good players and find the right spot for them in Norm’s system. They develop the players in the weight room and on the practice field. The best thing about the defense is how it functions as a unit. You know the old saying…the whole is better than the sum of the parts, that’s Iowa defense. They play really good team defense, a weakness of the 2009-2010 Eagles.

I don’t know if Iowa and Norm Parker did have influence on Castillo or if this is pure coincidence. If Castillo did choose to borrow some ideas from them, that’s fine with me. Parker is a terrific coach. As a Penn State fan who once saw his team lose 6-4 to Iowa, I can personally attest that they know how to play defense.

Saw that about Cole. It left me wondering, how would Trent measure up if teams actually designed game plans around him, like they do with guys like Peppers, Freeney, Tuck, Allen, etc? No disrespect to Trent, but he wouldn’t scare me the way some other DEs would. I honestly don’t know how to classify Trent Cole. Very good? Great?

Opposite argument for Nnamdi. Teams are obviously terrified of throwing his way. Would his stats look better if he was a slightly “lesser” player? What would an OC do if he HAD to throw at him more, like he would if he had a player like Samuel on the other side? Reason #14 why I want Asomugha.

good catch tommy, makes sense. we also drafted a guard from iowa i believe.

i like weddle but why not just keep Q then? i think they like their young safties. i love nate allen, i feel like he could be a dawk type blitzer. and i am ok with k coleman if jarret isnt ready to start (as long as we get a good right corner). i got a good feeling about jarret too

Interesting perspective Tommy. You have talked a lot about Castillo as DC and the challenge of game-time adjustments and I was thinking will personnel packages, who to have on the field and when be a challenges too or is that “easy”?

It also occurred to me that with ½ year worth of FA speculation a lot of people will disappointed no matter who we sign or trade for

Interesting point of view, but it is worrying that we know so little about the philosophies of our new defensive coordinator that you can posit the idea that he may take influence from the defensive coach of his son’s college team and the only legitimate response is “Maybe… Who knows? I guess we’ll find out.”

But I wonder what that would mean for Trent Cole. He might finally reach his boiling point if he sees the F.O. paying ANOTHER defensive end big money (Darren Howard counts too). If I were him, I’d go nuts.

The F.O. could rationalize their decision by saying Johnson is 25 and has a longer career ahead of him (Cole turns 30 in October). But Cole is only human… and a football player… which means he doesn’t care if some punk 25 year old has more tread left on the tires.

Interesting, but it does not answer what for me is a key question. How do you know if something that works in the college game will carry over to the pro game. This is especially vital when you have an inexperienced DC since we do not yet know if Castillo’s defensive instincts and beliefs will work in the NFL . After all I still get a good chuckle just thinking about Dan Snyder hiring Steve Spurrier to bring in the Run and Shoot. Offense, I know but isn’t that still a relevant example?

Wow I didn’t realize weddle was that young. With 2 second round picks over the last two years and K Coleman looking like a solid pick, I don’t see them spending top dollar on a safety. But I def wouldn’t mind picking him up.

I think Chicago Bears run the same scheme, pretty sure that’s what Castillo said. So it works in the NFL

MCG. Dude I would be the happiest guy in the world if it went down like that. I have been thinking the same thing. But minus DRC. I want DRC badly but I don’t see it happening, I think we just get picks. I see us getting Ike, johnson, and trying for Albert. Or maybe just Namdi and trying for Albert. I am happy either way.

Yeah, as important as it is that we find a starting CB before the season starts, it feels more important to hurry up and extend DeSean. I know Rosenhaus and DeSean have handled the contract situation perfectly so far… but we don’t need any distractions this season or next. We’re so close to a Super Bowl.

On that note, I wonder how contract negotiations with DeSean will impact Jeremy Maclin. Maclin can’t get the same money as DeSean, can he?

70-964-10
47-1056-6

Look at those stats and you see both guys have important roles in our offense.

desean gets 565k this year, thats pretty bad. i could see desean wanting to be traded if he doesnt get paid. maclin seems like a reid guy and if he keeps getting better i would think we would extend him before his final year

There are a lot of fans who have been down on Reid and the draft… but I think your contract numbers for Maclin, Jackson, and Shady prove that Big Red and Co. have done a pretty lights out job on evaluating offensive talent.

Here’s to the notion that Washburn can turn some of our high draft picks (Bunk and Mike Patterson) into pocket collapsing nightmares for the other team. Maybe he can even polish up Te’O and get something out of that young “high motor” player. We all know he loves Brandon Graham, so hopefully he will stick around long enough to help our most recent high defensive pick into a stud.

Let’s hope the CBA talks go more smoothly than this Casey Anthony trial…

Has any other sport managed to polarize fans the way the NFL has during their lockout? I mean, those of us who are rabid fans are scratching out the smallest tidbits of information searching for anything to rouse our interest.

All the while, the average fan doesn’t even seem to notice that the lockout is happening because so far the season hasn’t been honestly threatened… yet.

seriously. when this is all over and the eagles start making moves, it will feel like christmas morning when i was 5 years old. i will never appreciate preseason games more than i will this year. no matter how bad the commentating is i will watch every snap, except for the final game. final preseason game is pretty bad after the first half.

i really think this thing will be settled by the begining of next week. it seems like they are finishing up a deal but dont want to let anyone know until it is 100% finalized.

That’s what I mean though. Aren’t we getting close to the time when we usually re-sign our good young guys? I guess Maclin is a couple years off, but we could use some of this projected cap space to extend LeSean and front-load some salary, right?

Living and growing up in Iowa, I love this defense and the production they get out of small school farm kids. With that said, if Castillo copies anything besides the keeping things simple I will be very disappointed. I always found it funny how, on Saturdays I watch the Iowa defense never blitz and then on Sundays see the Eagles blitz almost once a series if not more, and while it works for the Hawks to not send extra guys, I have always been more of a fan of the defense creating plays that the Offense has to react against instead of always having be the reactee on defense. Ray Lewis said it best back in 2000 when they were crazy good, that they don’t base their defense on how the offense reacts, they dictate to the offense how they need to play. (As a disclaimer I realize I’m only talking about roughly a quarter or so of defensive snaps played that teams actually make the decision on whether or not to blitz)

I said the same thing, worrying about the blitz going away. It was pointed out to me that what is exciting about a blitz is getting to the QB and taking control of the snap. If we can do that with just four guys, you are going to see the opposing QB on the ground more often. That will also be exciting.

Castillo didn’t seem to suggest that the blitz was going away, he has said multiple times he was a fan of JJ’s early defenses. They definitely blitzed, just without some of the outrageous complexity later JJ and McDermot D’s had.

yeah we are going to have to be shelling out some $$. Desean, Vick, Mccoy and Maclin.

Mcalin can wait until sometimes next year. But Mccoy needs to be done before next season starts. And obviously Vick and Desean.

Iwoa Eagle, i get the same feeling. But isnt he scared of getting hurt? He is so fragile. I think he will want more than we will give, hopefully they work it out. I honestly wouldnt be surprised to see him traded this year.

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